Alison Taylor

I am an independent social worker with over fifteen years experience working with children and their families in a variety of settings. I have significant experience working with foster carers and ‘looked after’ children in both the private and public sector. I have also worked in local authority children and families teams holding a caseload of child protection and court related cases.

My long term interest has been, firstly, working with young women, including those where there are concerns about parenting skills. I have experience in supporting young mothers in the court assessment process and in addition have supported parent and child placements as part of a multi-disciplinary assessment team. In addition, I have significant experience working with adolescent looked after children.

Latterly I worked as a Recruitment Manager for an independent foster care agency that is nationally recognised as the leader in this field. The team was multi-disciplinary with an ethos on supporting and maintaining ‘difficult to place’ children and young people. My role also involved the assessment of prospective foster carers from initial enquiry stage to the completion of Form F assessments. I now work independently undertaking kinship assessments and intensive parenting assessments for local authorities and the courts.